


We'll Make It, I Swear

by Kian



Series: The Dance [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas Fluff, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, M/M, Sappy Ending, Working Over Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 03:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2907095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kian/pseuds/Kian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Boxing Day, and he hasn’t been home since the morning of Christmas Eve.</p><p>Not that there’s anyone there to notice, Lestrade thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Make It, I Swear

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Christmas is Near” by Charlotte Martin. Timestamp from somewhere in "The Dance" series.
> 
> As ever, un-betaed and un-Brit-picked, so report all issues to the front desk. Entirely manipulative Christmas fluff, so enjoy!

It’s Boxing Day, and he hasn’t been home since the morning of Christmas Eve.

 _Not that there’s anyone there to notice_ , Lestrade thinks.

If it sounds a little more bitter in his head than he’s been letting on up to this point, then it’s safe behind the walls of his mind anyway. No one but a Holmes can read minds, and there aren’t any of them around at present.

That’s the whole problem, after all. If there were a Holmes there to read his mind, then he wouldn’t be here, rolling a cigarette between his lips while fumbling for a light in the stiff chill of a winter’s night outside the mostly deserted Yard.

The cigarette isn’t doing much to calm his unsettled mind, but he hadn’t really expected it to. It had been Donovan’s idea — really, more of an order — that Greg take an hour to get out of his office, away from the murder case he’s been throwing himself into for the last forty some-odd hours straight. The case that had sent him crawling all over London, fighting against the Christmas lull to find trampled evidence and witnesses gone on holiday and clues under all the trappings of the season.

The case that he'd been using to distract himself since the phone call had come from Anthea on Christmas Eve, a two minute conversation which had effectively killed all hope of spending the holiday with his husband-to-be. Not that he was really angry or anything. He was a grown man. He could deal with disappointment.

Nevermind that for most of November and well into December, Greg had been trading shifts, gathering together favors, logging his hours meticulously, all so he could secure time off for that precious twenty-four hours Mycroft had promised him would be likewise free from any and all minor-government official duties. And he’d managed it, somewhat miraculously. All of Christmas Day off, and even most of the back half of Christmas Eve. And he’d had a plan, a whole schedule for how to spend that time to make the most of the holiday. If quite a significant part of that schedule involved minimal clothing and every horizontal surface in Mycroft’s flat, well...

In the end, it had been Mycroft who had gotten the last minute call of duty and been spirited away to parts unknown. Lestrade — knowing a lost cause when he heard one — had gone home just long enough to unplug the tree, and then had called Dimmock and let him know that Greg would cover his shift for him.

Dimmock’s hysterical thanks had still been ringing in his ears when the report for the murder had come in and Greg had barely allowed himself to come up for air ever since. He had crashed for a few hours, stretched out across a few of the office chairs, and had woken with a sore back, a headache, and the sure knowledge that he wasn’t in his twenties any longer.

Until Sally had kicked him out to “get a coffee or something; just get out of here and away from this for five minutes. In fact, I’m sick of your face for the next hour, boss”, he’d been successfully pushing the whole thing with Mycroft to the very back of his mind. Or, at the very least, he had managed to soldier on through his disappointment, to mostly ignore the fact that it was Christmas and that he was spending it alone and at work because he wasn’t sure how else to fill in the hours without Mycroft.

Now he’s wandering the London streets, everything lit up and glistening and soft-looking. All the streets are scrubbed up carefully and decorated in fragrant garland, thick velvety bows, and cheerfully twinkling lights. The whole city is gilt in silver and blue, red and gold, green and white, a glowing, glittering playground over top of the grit and grime of everyday life in London. He doesn’t often have the luxury of paying the season much attention given the nature of his job, but Lestrade can appreciate the effort as he trundles along, hunched into his coat against the chill of the damp air and nursing the last of his cigarette before snuffing it out and tossing the extinguished butt into the nearest bin.

He slouches past Westminster Abbey, all lit up and postcard-perfect with its outdoor tree prettily tucked just below the towering arches. The Houses of Parliament perch regally over the banks of the Thames, and the clock face shines down at him, illuminating the hour and somehow standing in silent judgment over his 48-hour, self-imposed exile from home.

He joins the thinning crowd of people bustling over Westminster Bridge, but steps to the side when he nears the middle, tucking himself along the wall like a tourist and looking out across the water, where a handful of ferries push along against the current, bright balls of light against the softly rolling black of the river.

There are couples, huddled close and wrapped up tight together, meandering along the walkways over the river. Little romantic strolls in the relative peace of the cold night air, taking in the city with eyes colored over with the forgiveness of Christmas cheer, love nurtured in the lull of a winter’s evening. Lestrade had imagined himself in their shoes not all that long ago, spending his first Christmas with Mycroft indulging in the kind of silly romantic notions and schemes they were all too often too busy to entertain. He’d reminded himself a handful of times in the last two days that there would be a lifetime of opportunities to get those little moments between the two of them, but standing alone in the cold night air, he’s having a hard time pressing down the lump of dejected frustration.

He’s known, ever since he and Mycroft had reconnected nearly a year back, that Mycroft’s job was something that took precedence over just about everything else in Mycroft’s life, and Greg was content with that most of the time. What Mycroft does — whatever it is — is important on a scale that Greg can’t hope to compete with in Mycroft’s attention. He just wished that it didn’t bully in on their lives without warning so very, very often. He knows Mycroft can’t help it, but he also can’t quite stop keeping score of how often his job interrupts their time together as compared to Mycroft’s. The score, if he were ever to admit to its existence outloud, is so lopsided as to be patently ridiculous. Greg can’t help thinking that he’d notice that imbalance a lot less if he’d just been allowed to have his quiet little Christmas for two.

When the clock chimes lowly, he starts the trek back to the Yard, back up Bridge Street and cutting across Parliament Square with a nod to Winnie as he went. He keeps his chin tucked into his scarf and the collar of his coat as he shrugs up Victoria Street, his mind already drifting back onto the case he’d been struggling over. He’s rehashing the timeline they’d pieced together over the course of the last two days to himself as he slips back into the Yard and darts into an elevator up to his division’s floor, huffing and shuffling a little under his buttoned-up coat as he shakes off the cold air from outside for the dry, warm air inside.

When the elevator doors open, he’s reviewing their initial list of suspects to himself, the collection of alibis he and his team need to follow-up on, shucking off gloves into his coat pockets and tugging loose his scarf from his throat as he crosses the sparsely populated office toward the light of his own office. A few phones are ringing, he can hear the copier running off paper down the hall, and a few of the deputies look up enough to nod as he walks past. A regular night shift getting underway, despite the lingering evidence of Christmas slouching here and there about the place. It helps him sink fully into his work, a welcome retreat from thoughts of Mycroft and the indulgent self-pity of a disappointed lover.

At the door to his office, he’s pulling his coat and scarf off, his head turned over his shoulder to try and spy Sally, so he doesn’t notice it at first. When he reaches to set the coat and scarf over the back of one the chairs in front of his desk though, the little teacup and saucer sitting in a cleared space in the exact middle of his worktop arrests his attention completely.

The delicate flowers and gold gilt on the fine cup and saucer have been the source of much teasing over the years, but the bone china is so obviously dear that no one in the office dares to touch them when they sit on the drying rack in the little kitchenette allocated for their floor’s communal use. And yet, someone has obviously done just that, shuffling his papers aside into neat stacks so that the little teacup and saucer may sit in pride of place, full nearly to the brim with gently steaming liquid.

When Greg circles around to his desk chair, his coat still slung over his arm absentmindedly, he finds a small cream envelope leaning against the front of the cup, his name written neatly on the front in a familiar hand.

He sits without notice, taking the envelope and opening it in search of the little note within. The message is brief, succinct lines on heavy stationary, signed in thick swirls of ink at the bottom. He drops it, stands suddenly, and launches himself to the doorway of his office, barking out a goodbye to Donovan as he shrugs himself into his coat once more, draping his scarf carelessly about his neck in his rush. Sally bellows back a gruff “Good!” from somewhere in the depths of the labyrinth of desks, and Lestrade slaps off the lights to his office when his eyes fall back on the little cup and saucer once more, forgotten on his desk.

He ducks inside the cool darkness of his office again, and lifts the teacup to his lips, sipping in sudden, careful slowness. He feels the warmth of the liquid suffuse through him as he swallows carefully, and there is a curious kind of lightness expanding in him from somewhere behind his breastbone.

He drains the cup in four unhurried sips, then sets it gently down with a muted clink on its saucer. Smiling, Greg closes the door of the office behind him and returns the way he has come.

On the desk, the little missive remains, face turned upward beside the remains of the tea service.

_“Gregory, home at last. Hurry and join me, love. Christmas can’t begin without you. Mycroft.”_

* * *

 end

 

 


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